Walking Music: Find The Right Beat To Boost Your Energy

Walking music is a great way to give you a boost of energy while exercising. This article will provide you with a complete guide to selecting the best songs for your walks.

You'll find helpful advice to:

Create your own personalized play-list of your favorite walking music

Purchase a pre-made fitness CD that has the perfect songs to exercise to, plus guidance and motivation to stay on track

Have you ever noticed what happens when your favorite song comes on the radio?

Maybe you start tapping your foot or clapping your hands. In some form or another, you start moving. Why is that? Because our favorite songs give us energy.

There is evidence to support this too! Many studies have been conducted on the power of listening to music while exercising.

One study conducted at Hampden-Sydney College in Virgina found that students traveled 11% further while listening to music than listening to silence or static. Additionally, they rated their levels of exertion as lower than the students who listened to silence or static.

This study demonstrates that those who listen to music while exercising are able to push themselves further without noticing the extra effort. (source: Reuters.comMusic Helps Exercisers Go Further with Less Effort By Alison McCook)

A word of caution before we go further. Keep your music at a low volume so that you can hear the sounds around you and stay aware of your surroundings. You don't want your music so loud that you can't hear traffic, animals, people or cyclists coming up behind you.

You can make your own play-list by finding songs with the right tempo that will match your walking pace. You’ll need to find the beats per minute of the song to ensure that it has the right tempo for walking.

Here is a guide for selecting songs with the proper beats per minute to match your fitness level:

Beginner (slow stroll): 115 – 118 beats per minute

Intermediate (brisk walking): 118 – 126 beats per minute

Advanced (fast walking): 130 – 138 beats per minute

See my recommendations for fast walking music

Power walking: 137+ beats per minute

See my recommnedations for songs at this pace.

Why Buy a Walking Fitness CD?

These specially designed CDs offer many options. Some of the options to choose from are:

Songs for warm-ups and cool-downs

Inspiration, encouragement and motivation by a fitness expert

Interval training

Stretching tips and advice

If you aren’t interested in buying a cd, there are MP3s available for download as well.

Where can you find music for fitness walking? Healthy Living Hit Music
is a great site. There is a large selection of music for all fitness levels and music from every genre. Not all songs are sung by the original artists because the songs have been remade to an appropriate tempo for each fitness level. They sound very much like the originals, though. The prices are very reasonable.

Amazon also has a good selection as well as MP3 downloads. I am a big fan of Leslie Sansone. She is a fitness walking expert and has some great cds for all fitness levels.

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